Pete Wedderburn

Pete Wedderburn qualified as a vet twenty-five years ago, and now spends half his working life writing newspaper columns. He lives in Ireland with his wife, two daughters and a menagerie of dogs, cats, poultry and other furry and feathered companions. Pete answers readers' queries about their pets' health in his video Q&A – he is also on Twitter as @petethevet and has a Facebook Fan Page.

Sadly, it seems that the story is true. Transgenic cows, effectively human-cow hybrids, have been produced. It’s another step along a road filled with ethical dilemmas. I know that I’ll be accused of being a Luddite, but I’m filled with misgivings. Yet again, science has tunnel vision: proponents see only the positive aspects of what they’re doing, forgetting the law of unintended and unpredicted consequences.

Transgenic animals – genetically engineered to have a man-made genetic code – are not new. The term was coined thirty years ago, and transgenic laboratory animals have become increasingly important as research subjects. Their use includes:

• the basic biological study of regulatory gene elements
• in medical research, as models of human disease
• in toxicology as test animals
• in agriculture and aquaculture to improve yields of meat and other animal products
• and, as in this latest example, in biotechnology as producers of specific proteins

Most of this has been going on out of the public eye, but there has been plenty of debate in the scientific community about the ethical issues of transgenic animals. Areas of concern include animal welfare, human health and environmental issues. They include animal suffering caused by the expression of transgenes, including early mortality, as well as cancers or neurodegenerative diseases in animals that survive. Other issues include the possible escape of transgenic animals into the environment, as well as the inevitable progression of technology.

Does anyone really think that it will stop with animals' genomes? The genie is out of the bottle: modification of the human genome is now inevitable. We're soon going to create animals with increasing levels of human-type consciousness.

Michael Crichton predicted this in his novel, Next, where hybrids of primates and humans were created to harvest their organs for human medical use. Do we want this to happen? And if not, what can we do to stop it?